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Dave Engledow is the world’s best father. He even has the book to prove it. Engledow’s ongoing photo series “documenting” life with his daughter Alice Bee is dangerously charming. Initiated in 2010, when Alice Bee was about six weeks old, Engledow has Photoshopped the pair into absurd, perilous, and touching scenarios. His wife Jen helps with every shoot, sometimes entering the frame.

“It’s funny-my initial intent with these images was to create something a bit darker that subverted the cutesy, overly-poignant clichés you see in a lot of traditional baby portraiture. I never intended for this project to be a heartwarming, feel-good story. Ironically, what a lot of people tell me they take away from these images is the obvious love that I have for Alice Bee-people see beyond the silly, satirical character I portray in these images and instead see a father who has decided to spend his precious free-time creating something special and unique for his daughter. I guess that’s pretty cool, if unintended and unexpected.” (Source)

To create the images, Engledow shoots Alice Bee first, a process that can take anywhere from 10 minutes to over an hour. He then photographs himself and digitally combines the images, which takes between 5-15 hours depending on the complexity of the shot. The series first gained attention in 2013 when Kickstarter featured his campaign to turn the photos into a calendar. Confessions of the World’s Best Father, the book, followed in May 2014.

“The character I portray in this series is intended to be a parody of the father I hope I never become–distracted, self-absorbed, neglectful, clueless, or even occasionally overbearing.” (Source)

Part perplexed, part demented, Engledow commits to his role as bumbling dad. The result is a labor of love that captures the unique bond between father and daughter.

Mexican artist Ricardo Solis has re-imagined both the divine and evolutionary theories on the origin of life. In his whimsical paintings, artist depicts various animals — from a goldfish to an elephant — being colored, carved out of stone or even weaved as the friendly mama bear below. Solis’ works connect the realistic style of painting with his tameless imagination.

The viewer is presented with a variety of animals, painted in an almost anatomically accurate manner. Under closer inspection, the works reveal a Guliver-inspired action: tiny humans crawling up and down the monolithic animals, covering them in paint, sculpting or attaching ribbon stripes from a flying Zeppelin. Although Solis’ creative interpretation is far from reality, his lighthearted version of genesis is relaxing and fun to observe.

Solis was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. Despite being brought up in a large metropolis, he was always attracted to art and nature. After graduating from the School of Visual Arts and becoming a professional painter, Solis has a chance to link these two passions together and channel them through his dreamlike works of art. In his website Ricardo Solis claims to believe in “the undeniable existence of a Creator” which seems like the epitome of his work. (via Lost At E Minor)

Porn stars are faced with a conundrum. If they act well, can the audience believe that they’re enjoying the sex? That acting may be beside the point entirely is made clear by the found photographs in Issue #008 of Useful Photography magazine, published by KesselsKramer. Each image is taken from the introductory, non-intimate scenes from adult movies and magazines.

Pornographic films, websites and magazines all plough the same furrow – the repetition of the same act, in all its variations. Where they differ is their opening sequences, the patently fake and false scenarios, which are an afterthought to the main event. … Useful Photography celebrates these opening scenes, often cliche, sometimes bizarrely inventive, but always supremely fake.

These stills act like creative prompts: what’s happening and what’s going to happen next? Where did those weeping women find those netted hats? Why so many pigtails? Is that a dead man on that table and blood on the nurse’s apron? And, perhaps more to the point, is any of this a turn on?

Recontextualising found photographs and curating them into books and exhibitions is Kessels’ speciality. Useful Photography #008 is the eighth title in the popular series; previous subjects include missing persons’ photographs, amateur trophy winners and professional trade images of cows. (Source)

Frozen in time these images are a compilation of heavy make-up and leers, short skirts and creative facial hair. Clearly dated, it’s difficult to find their try hard sexiness titillating. It could be argued that one doesn’t watch porn for the acting… or the scenery, the wardrobe, the script, or the music. These ridiculous introductory scenes provide atmosphere, serving laughter as foreplay. (via Feature Shoot)

Dominic Wilcox is a British artist whose works balance on the margins of bizarre, yet somehow very logical and poignant at the same time. His cutting-edge inventions vary from unbelievable tech-wizardry (GPS shoes), to everyday objects that would actually find a place in our household (tea cup with a fan). Despite often humorist approach, Wilcox crafts his devices until they look and work like intended.

When asked, what is it that he does, Wilcox hesitates: “If I had to title myself, I would say I’m an artist/designer/thinker.” He says he loves innovation, creativity and finding conceptual surprises hidden in the banal, mundane things that surround us everyday. Thus, most of his concepts are light, direct and with a pinch of witty intention. Artist isn’t afraid to be the lab rat for his works. For example in the Switch project (below), he was wearing the metallic toggle for nearly a month, day and night.

Besides actually making these crazy inventions, Dominic starts each idea with a sketch. To pay tribute to all the unaccomplished ideas, he has published a book titled “Variations on Normal”. Full of insightful illustrations, this book may give you some inspiration on your next invention, say… a family poncho or a machine that strengthens handshakes.

Visual artist Kalen Hollomon, recently titled the “cut out king of New York”, is blurring the lines between the social conformity and taboo with his mixed media artworks. His collages feature mundane city life moments, high fashion editorials and old advertisements blended with clippings from vintage pornography scenes.

“I am always concerned with what lies beneath the surface – with relativity, perception, sexuality and pop culture. My images are reality manipulation, manipulating other people’s identities. The idea of and ability to alter the value or meaning of an image or object by adding or subtracting elements is really exciting to me – adding or taking away elements from something until it becomes the sexiest it can be at that moment.”

Holomon is christened to be the child of the iPhone generation. Snapped with a smartphone camera, his creative collages started gaining exposure thanks to the social media platforms Instagram and Twitter. However, the same attention has forced the artist to censor some of his works. Hollomon says he “had accounts shut down and posts removed for as little as butt cheeks”.

Beyond the absurdity and wit, Hollomon’s work also represents the new trend of privacy-lacking public photography. His instant iPhone images from New York’s streets and subways rarely deal with any permissions for public use. That unawareness is exactly what turns such works into powerful socio-documentary messages. (via Dazed)

The Slap, a totally fresh video by filmmaker Max Landis, is a clever response to the famous First Kiss video that went viral three months ago and has been making all of us go awwww up until now. Landis’ video features 40 randomly paired people in a fairly uncomfortable situation – the goal for them was to slap each other in the face. Even if it’s the first time they had met.

According to the author, none of the participants were pressured to do so and all of them were “hit as hard as THEY asked to be hit”. The beauty of this project lies in the contrast between a somewhat violent action of hitting other person and the intimate feeling the participants develop towards each other.

Though Landis really was aiming to mock the famous First Kiss video (which is obvious from the black and white color palette and similar upbeat music), he did go beyond just that. His explanation video called Point Of Impact explains the reasons for him to make “The Slap” in the first place.

“What is violence? It’s really just a label, isn’t it, if you let your mind go to a dark place. I decided to define violence as “non-consensual physical interference;” <…> What is trust? Do you trust someone not to hurt you? Are you even thinking about it? Do you care if they hurt you if you trust them? <…> The theory was: A slap, robbed of its violating context, is more intimate than a kiss. My theory, as it turned out, was right.”

Btw, did you notice the cherry on top? At 1:48, there’s Haley Joel Osment (yup, the kid from The Sixth Sense) being slapped straight into his lush beard.

Roland Topor (1938–1997) was a French illustrator, painter, writer, filmmaker, actor and whatnot mostly known for his macabre and surreal cartoons. His illustrated book “Les Masochistes” was first published in 1960 and features a number of absurdly humorous masochistic actions that people perform on themselves.

The grotesque situations depicted in “Les Masochistes” perfectly convey Topor’s artistic style and approach towards the world. He infuses the grim reality of Nazi dictatorship (Topor and his family were Polish refugees of Jewish origin) with humor which was probably the best coping mechanism at that time. As described by Bernard Vehmeyer, a quote from Topor’s novel “The Tenant” perfectly sums up his world view:

He was perfectly conscious of the absurdity of his behavior, but he was incapable of changing it. This absurdity was an essential part of him. It was probably the most basic element of his personality.

Most often, Topor’s illustrations were based on surreal scenarios with deeper allusions to sex, erotica, rotting mankind and such. According to closer friends, artist had repetitive periods of extreme depression where he would balance on the verge of death and it reflects in his work.

Nøne Futbol Club is a duo of Paris based artists. They work in a wide variety of mediums and forms from video to installation. However, nearly all of their work seems to be tied together by a certain mischievous sense of humor. Though not always overtly political, the duo’s art is definitely subversive. For example, consider Lift a Finger, the first piece pictured here. The maneki-neko, usually a statuette of a welcoming or beckoning cat suddenly becomes hostile with a simple change of hand gesture. The pharase “KEEP WARM BURNOUT THE RICH” is turned into a branding iron. The implement not only burns, but more importantly is a tool for displaying and designating ownership.

Nicolas Rosette goes onto describe the duo’s practice saying:

“Nøne Futbol Club is a duo that is capable of mobilizing as many accomplices as necessary to make their works and performances.
The playful component is inseparable from their creative process which tackles the world like a playground for the expression of an art whose nature has continually bordered on the cellophane of the white cube and the great palaces must take the risk of being a mass distribution product. The recursive principle in their work is reversal. It is not about diverting elements from pop culture(or popular culture, the term changing depending on whether this culture comes to us from one side or the other of the Atlantic Ocean) but of a reversal whose final address is always popular culture. A double inversion, whose process of revelation reflects back to us as in a mirror the possible destiny of an art world which has become less subtle than the current popular media cultures; whose practices of critical and jubilatory diversions are the foundation. Would the Nøne Futbol Club be applying to contemporary art what digital cultures have subjected Chuck Norris, the pope and Darth Vader to?”